Earthlings is a working operational implementation of a voluntarily self-organized non-territorial people, resting on the principle of self-determination.
The project's founding documents describe this model as the architecture of a society in which power accumulates at no single point. Earthlings brings together people from different countries around the Declaration of Self-Determination - an unamendable founding core that no majority can rewrite - and around a digital infrastructure providing verified participation on the principle of "one person, one vote" at planetary scale.
The architecture of Earthlings is designed as a single institutional system rather than assembled from off-the-shelf components. For engagement with the existing legal system the people, through authorized representatives, uses registered legal structures and other legal instruments - replaceable external interfaces for engagement. The people itself is governed through its own DAO infrastructure.
Twenty-five founding documents in nine languages, an on-chain identity, and a publicly verifiable treasury make up Earthlings in its current institutional state. The full operational cycle is covered by four production sites, deployed from April 2025 onward:
- the founding documents;
- biometric identification and the issuance of SBT passports;
- the ecosystem platform;
- a philosophical companion site.
The infrastructure of self-government - the registry, identity verification, voting, Cells, the internal economy, and the treasury - is built, deployed, and tested in a working environment. The people is in its founding phase: entry is opening, and from the first day the whole practice of self-government - votes, decisions, movements of funds - is recorded in a public chronicle. The body that by its nature requires an established membership - the Independent Council - is formed once that membership is in place; until then it is provided for by the founding documents.
The economic level is deliberately separated from governance and from identification. Every Earthling holds three architecturally distinct attributes:
- a non-transferable SBT passport (identity);
- one vote in the DAO regardless of any other assets (governance);
- a measurable economic trace expressed in Earthlings Coin (EC).
EC is the utility token of the ecosystem: it provides access to platform services, rewards contribution in Cells, and is used to fund collective initiatives.
The quantity of EC a person holds is, as a matter of principle, not convertible into influence over governance. Wealth and the vote exist as separate architectural axes rather than being merged into a single token-weighted variable, as in most DAO models.
EC is not a security and not an investment instrument. It is not legal tender and is not electronic money; within the ecosystem it serves as a unit of account for services and contribution.
Earthlings offers not a manifesto with technology attached but a functioning institution that can be examined, verified, and joined.
The founding corpus was written by Artur Arakelian. It is a draft put forward for discussion, not a finished body of rules that only remains to be adopted.
Anyone may propose an amendment to any document, and the texts acquire force not from authorship but from the vote: this people will be founded not by whoever drew up the documents, but by those who vote for them. The procedure is set out in The Founding Period.
The institutional architecture of Earthlings consists of three distinct structural elements, designed to interact in parallel rather than hierarchically.
This principle is fundamental: each element addresses tasks structurally unavailable to the others, while no element holds the power to take decisions for another.
The result is an architecture in which power is distributed, revocable, and reduced to a minimum.
Within the community itself, the document "Earthlings Ethics" distinguishes four functional roles:
- the DAO Assembly - DECISIONS;
- the Core Nodes - SERVICE;
- the Emergency Multisig - SECURITY;
- the Independent Council - ADVICE.
The DAO Assembly, comprising all Earthlings, takes binding decisions.
The Core Nodes provide technical coordination on a rotating basis.
The Emergency Multisig protects the infrastructure from exploits and critical threats - also on a rotating basis.
The Independent Council gives expert recommendations and advisory opinions (more).
The three key structural elements of Earthlings - the DAO, the legal instruments, and the Independent Council - provide the architecture of collective self-government, of external legal engagement, and of expert advice.
The SERVICE and SECURITY functions are performed by separate technical bodies, described in detail in the documents The Earthlings DAO and Digital Platform.
The DAO
The DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) forms the institutional core of governance for the Earthlings people.
The DAO provides:
- collective decision-making;
- transparent allocation of resources;
- coordination of action between Earthlings and Cells;
- the functioning of the system without centralized authority.
The DAO rests on three fundamental principles:
- the biometrically confirmed uniqueness of every participant;
- the principle of "one person, one vote";
- transparent procedural rules applied equally to all.
A detailed description of the DAO architecture, the levels of participation, the decision-making procedures, and the mechanisms of protection against capture is given in the document The Earthlings DAO.
Legal instruments (the external legal interface)
For engagement with the existing legal system, Earthlings, through authorized representatives, uses registered legal structures and other legal instruments in various jurisdictions.
Their functions are limited to:
- legal representation;
- engagement with external institutions;
- concluding contracts;
- tax and administrative accounting.
Such structures serve solely as replaceable operational means of external engagement:
- they do not define the people or its existence;
- they carry no legitimacy and hold no power over the people;
- they do not manage the DAO treasury and take no governance decisions for the people;
- they remain replaceable and external: they may be established, replaced, and wound up without affecting the continuity and identity of the people.
External charitable and grant funds, when received, pass through an independent fiscal host as the legal recipient; the Earthlings legal structures neither accept nor hold such funds on behalf of the people.
The detailed legal model is set out in the document Legal Basis.
The Independent Council
The Independent Council, as described in the "Earthlings Charter" and in the dedicated document The Earthlings Independent Council, is conceived as a body of seven to eleven Earthlings who take no part in the operational governance of the people and who have recognized expertise in the fields of:
- ecology;
- law;
- philosophy;
- human rights;
- science;
- civic activism.
The Council is intended to serve as the people's ethical mirror through:
- advisory opinions;
- recommended reviews of DAO decisions;
- annual public reports.
The Council holds no right of veto over decisions of the DAO.
Its authority is reputational, not formal.
Creating the Council is regarded as the next institutional stage in the development of Earthlings.
The key principle in forming the Council is that its members should be people who have studied the Earthlings model deeply, not public figures invited solely for status or prestige.
The project was initiated by Artur Arakelian; up to now it has been funded entirely from his personal funds.
No external funding has been raised to date.
The Earthlings legal structures do not operate as financial intermediaries: they provide no payment services, neither raise nor place third-party funds, and conduct no trading operations in anyone's interest.
The details are set out in the document Legal Basis.
The project's on-chain treasury is held in a Safe Multisig on the Polygon network.
Every transaction is available for public audit.